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Eye of the Cobra

Page 29

by Christopher Sherlock


  He looked down now at his watch. Just after two in the morning. He’d better get some sleep. It was strange how his life had begun to revolve around the night - all those strange, secret liaisons he had to make with Phelps’s associates. A cloud passed over the moon, and for a moment he felt nervous. Then he dismissed the feeling and walked off down the road, an elegant figure in his dinner-jacket, a white silk scarf hanging casually around his neck.

  Estelle and Carlos arrived back late at the estancia, after a pleasant dinner with some members of Carlos’s polo team. There was a telegram waiting for Carlos in the large wood-beamed hall, and something told Estelle that it did not bode well. However, he put it in his jacket pocket and walked up the stairs to their room.

  She followed him upstairs, drew the curtains and looked out at the rolling grasslands in the moonlight, the distant mountains. She thought - not for the first time - of how lucky she was to have found Carlos after James’s death.

  Carlos was reading the telegram and his face had darkened.

  ‘Darling, what’s wrong?’

  He looked across to her.

  ‘It’s from the man investigating my brother’s murder.’

  ‘David is dead, Carlos - revenge won’t bring him back. Leave it alone.’

  Estelle was scared. She thought of how gruesome David’s murder had been. But it was in the past - she wanted Carlos to forget about it. She knew his brother had been playing with fire. David, as Minister of Justice in Colombia, had challenged the Ortega Cartel; he had liaised with the CIA and had had Emerson Ortega, the biggest producer and dealer, assassinated. But then David had been abducted and murdered, and a videotape of his dreadful death had been sent to his wife and children. It did not bear thinking about . . .

  Carlos looked across at her. ‘My contact says that Emerson Ortega is alive,’ he said. ‘That he murdered my brother. Emerson Ortega slowly hanged my brother to death.’

  She felt herself shaking. She did not want Carlos involved in this madness. ‘How do you know it’s true?’ she said.

  ‘An associate of David’s suspected that Emerson Ortega was still alive - that he’d been warned of the assassination attempt and had substituted a double for himself. Then, after his supposed death, Emerson Ortega murdered my brother in revenge.’

  ‘Leave it alone, Carlos . . .’

  ‘I cannot. I loved my brother.’

  Estelle walked to the window and stared out, unseeing. She prayed with all her heart that this obsession for justice would not take Carlos away from her too.

  The morning sunlight held Monaco in a warm embrace. Every available balcony had been commandeered to watch the event of the year. Policemen and officials were stationed at strategic positions throughout the city. No one was thinking about anything except the race.

  Bruce de Villiers gazed out over the road circuit. He did not like this track at all. As far as he was concerned, it was an anachronism that should have been left off the Grand Prix calendar years ago. He was still amused by the rebuff he had received from Ronnie Halliday, the head of the Formula One Constructors’ Association, after the TV appearance in which he tried to get Ricardo reinstated. He knew he’d got to Halliday.

  Street circuits were kept in the Grand Prix programme because they had a romance and glamour of their own. They were less impersonal than the large, purpose-built circuits, and less accessible. More importantly, they heightened the exclusive nature of the sport.

  ‘Something wrong, Bruce?’ Wyatt’s voice boomed out from across the pits.

  ‘No, nothing. Are you feeling confident?’

  ‘Yes.’ Wyatt walked over and slapped Bruce on the back.

  ‘As long as I can start in front, I’ll stay in front.’

  They were both silent for a few seconds. Monaco was hard on cars, it would be the ultimate test of the Shadow’s reliability.

  ‘Make sure Hoexter doesn’t try to cut in.’ Bruce was still scared of what had happened at Rio.

  ‘It wasn’t Hoexter’s fault.’

  Wyatt was excited. Hoexter was in second position in the McCabe. He was a driver who never held back, and Wyatt knew he would have to fight him the whole way.

  ‘I haven’t got a second driver in this race, Wyatt. Just remember that.’

  Debbie caused a lot of heads to turn as she walked into the pits with Ricardo. She was wearing an excuse of a white dress that hardly covered anything. Seeing her, Wyatt was reminded of Suzie, and his happy mood evaporated.

  Jack Phelps appeared from amongst the crowd that clustered at the edge of the pits like animals at a water-hole. He pumped Wyatt’s hand warmly.

  ‘It’s great to see you on form again, Wyatt,’ he beamed enthusiastically. ‘Our noted recall scores are way up. You’re advertising dynamite.’

  Wyatt couldn’t give a damn about noted recall scores. He stared at Phelps coolly. All the publicity was bothering him. He felt apprehensive, almost superstitious about making too much of a fuss about his victory in Rio. He knew the other drivers would be gunning for him now.

  ‘It’s one race so far, Jack. I need to consolidate to really make an impact.’

  ‘Hell, you’re a typical Brit. Isn’t he, Bruce?’ Phelps swung round to greet Bruce.

  Bruce was looking drawn, and Wyatt understood why. It was the constructor’s trophy that mattered more to Bruce than anything else, and with only one driver in the championship he hadn’t a chance of winning it. Only two drivers, both getting high up in the points, would give him the points accumulation he needed to win the trophy.

  ‘I prefer action to talk,’ Bruce said softly, each word carefully emphasized to make his point.

  ‘Modesty gets you nowhere in today’s world. You know Andy Warhol said that everyone should be famous for fifteen minutes? That’s the nature of the business - to ensure enduring fame. To put it bluntly, it adds to the pressure on you to perpetuate the legend.’

  Wyatt laughed. Perhaps Phelps had worked in marketing for so long that he believed his own bullshit. He wasn’t buying it, for sure, and he certainly wasn’t going to let it affect his edge.

  Phelps pulled them both away from the pit crew and took them into a huddle in the corner.

  ‘Listen, guys, I’m taking flak from that bitch Vanessa Tyson. She’s on an anti-smoking, anti-motor-racing drive. I’ll have her taken care of, but for the moment watch out. Especially you, Bruce. I don’t want any more interviews with her.’

  Bruce coloured.

  ‘I didn’t know that bitch would be on that programme!’

  Wyatt tensed up, and Jack winked at him.

  ‘I don’t want you worrying about this, Wyatt. She’s history.’

  The big American slapped him hard on the back.

  Wyatt never ceased to be amazed at Phelps’s organisational ability. True, there were a lot of flags and banners for other teams, but Calibre-Shensu logos seemed to be everywhere.

  Phelps concluded his discourse.

  ‘Gentlemen, I can see you’re busy, and besides, there isn’t much room down here. Wyatt . . .’

  He stretched out his hand.

  ‘I know you’ll deliver. Just like your father did here, ten years ago.’

  Phelps walked off smartly. He had hired an entire hotel for the Calibre-Shensu entourage - rooms and tickets had been given free to everyone who could be of influence in the cigarette or the car business. It was pure Hollywood.

  Wyatt felt numb. Phelps’s reference to his father had brought memories back. Memories of his father’s victory, memories of the accident, and Estelle shouting at him: ‘You killed him, you killed him . . . ’

  If Bruce had been momentarily been taken in by the glamour of the circus, what was happening in the pits brought him back to reality with a bump. It was crazy racing at Monaco: there wasn’t enough room. At every other track, safety and security standards were being constantly upgraded, but at Monaco life went on as usual. The track was narrow and bumpy, and it was almost impossible for cars to overtake one a
nother. And once the race was on, you were stuck in the pits - there was no way out at the back, except on foot through the heavy crowds. Really, it was almost impossible to race effectively in such an environment. Yet Monaco endured.

  There would be twenty-six cars on the starting-grid, all of them more competitive than the previous year. In fact, there were only seven seconds between the fastest and the slowest.

  The Monaco Grand Prix was a gamble. Beautiful girls, idyllic setting, high stakes . . . and if a car went out of control in the wrong place on this circuit, it could be catastrophic.

  He watched the cars whipping past him in the warm-up before the main race. Wyatt was keeping well in front, the tightness of the circuit not seeming to bother him at all. Twenty-six cars were too many as far as Bruce was concerned; he would have limited it to eighteen maximum. There just wasn’t room for them all on the circuit.

  As the cars rolled up onto the starting-grid, Bruce experienced a sense of foreboding. If Wyatt stayed out in front, he was safer, because it was in the pack, jostling for the front position that the real danger lay. At Monaco, if the front driver could maintain his pace he could lead the race from start to finish in an unassailable position.

  The sound of the cars’ engines rose into a collective roar, and as the starting-light turned green they burst from the grid, each driver determined to win.

  So far so good, thought Bruce. Only one two laps to go.

  He waited for Wyatt’s car to come round into view, ready to commence the seventy-seventh lap, and glanced down at his stop-watch. And suddenly he thought of Ricardo Sartori: yes, he could understand his bitterness at not being able to compete.

  Where were the cars? They should be round again by now. He knew Wyatt still held the lead, but Hoexter was hot on his tail. For the crowd the main excitement was coming from the back-markers, where an unknown German driver, Kurt Kunstler, was doing battle with Italian veteran, Toni Vignelli.

  Then the sirens erupted. Bruce could hear them in the distance and felt his body go weak. The pit lane exploded into chaos as different reports started coming in, but no one could tell what had happened. Over the speakers it was announced that there had been a serious accident at the Virage du Portier, just before the tunnel.

  Wyatt sensed Hoexter was dropping away as they came into the Virage du Portier. He saw the crashed cars and the flames, and he saw the gap between the crashed cars and the edge of the track. Only one lap left, one lap to victory.

  He glanced in his mirror. Hoexter was pulling over. At this late stage, there’d been no flags to halt the race. One lap, and he would win. He had to win for James’s sake.

  Wyatt put his foot on the accelerator and powered on through the smoke and the devastation.

  Bruce felt removed from the action. Two drivers in two races? Could his luck be that bad? The circuit was dangerous, everyone knew that, but what the hell had happened?

  The sound of ambulances and police cars was louder, and he heard sirens from across the pit lane. It was Professor Sid Watkins, the London neurosurgeon responsible for overseeing all the Formula One medical facilities, and in the car with him was the Chief Medical Officer.

  There must be fatalities. But they would not stop the race with only one lap left.

  He glanced down at his stop-watch. If Wyatt was still in the running, he’d be round now.

  The black shape of the Shadow shot past the pits, leading the rest of the pack by a lap. Hoexter was nowhere to be seen.

  Wyatt came around the Loews hairpin. The smoke had cleared and he saw the first cars, the flames and devastation. He saw the back of Hoexter’s McCabe in amongst the wreckage of a multitude of other cars - and he caught sight of a break in the Armco where several machines had careered into the crowd. There were stretchers everywhere. People were screaming.

  He kept on driving.

  This was the final lap.

  He had to win.

  Ricardo stared up at the crowd in the brilliant afternoon sunlight. This was what they waited for, he knew it. Not consciously, of course; no one would ever admit that the reason they watched motor sport was to see a serious accident. But danger was the magnet, all the same.

  The arena, the gladiators, the blood . . .

  Then, out of the flames and wreckage closer to the tunnel, came a man in a charred black jumpsuit. The face was black, the arms were carrying a body towards one of the ambulances. It was Hoexter.

  Ricardo could not help himself, he just kept on shaking. He had pushed himself to the edge of the crowd and was looking down on the devastation.

  You couldn’t blame the circuit for what had happened, he knew that. It was the two drivers, Kurt Kunstler and Toni Vignelli, who had died. They had gone into the Virage du Portier neck-and-neck, each trying to pass the other. As they swept around the corner their cars had collided and burst into flames. Neither of them had had a chance. Then the car immediately behind them had turned the accident into a catastrophe: it hit the other two, vaulted the Armco and went straight into the crowd like a Cruise missile. The driver was fine, but four people in the crowd lay dead and another twenty-one were seriously injured.

  Ricardo could remember the whole accident in meticulous detail, even though the actual collision had happened so quickly. The other cars had come round the corner with no knowledge of what had happened, and had ploughed into the burning wreckage. Most of the drivers got out, but there was one, Yves Courtauld, a Brazilian, who couldn’t. He was trapped, and the crowd had watched in stunned silence as the flames advanced on his car.

  Then Ricardo had seen the Shadow sweep round the bend. He had thought Wyatt would pull over, but he had carried on, determined to win. It was a cold-blooded, ruthless decision.

  Hoexter had pulled over. He’d been out of his car in a second, and without waiting to consider the consequences of his actions, he had sprinted into the flames engulfing the Brazilian’s car and with great difficulty pulled the man out.

  Ricardo didn’t want to see any more. He turned away, disappearing into the crowd, already late for his next appointment.

  Vanessa clutched at the Armco as Sean kept filming. She felt sick. Why hadn’t Wyatt stopped? They’d actually caught him on videotape glancing at the accident, then powering his car on past it with a roar.

  Her campaign was gathering momentum like an avalanche rolling down a snow-covered mountain. The tobacco companies, especially Jack Phelps Co., were putting pressure on the network to drop the story, but the owner of her station, Jay Levy, knew that the world reaction against smoking was growing, and that the audience figures for Vanessa’s show had rocketed higher than ever before. In his own words, she was media dynamite.

  Vanessa breathed in deeply and then Sean started filming her, the flames in the background.

  ‘Is this a war zone?’ Vanessa began. ‘Four people are dead and twenty-one injured. No, this is Formula One racing. And with one lap to go, the race isn’t going to be stopped. Everyone agrees that Monaco is a potentially dangerous circuit, but no one in Formula One is prepared to take any action because the sponsors know that Monaco grabs the public imagination, grabs the public attention. The glamour is here. So this footage will no doubt notch up cigarette sales for those conscience-free entrepreneurs out there, but the question must be asked: Can we really support this? Should the cigarette companies be allowed to keep on sponsoring this carnage? This is Vanessa Tyson, live from Monaco.’

  Sean gestured for Vanessa to relax, and she turned, gripped the Armco and leaned over the tarmac, sobbing.

  What the hell was she doing? she asked herself.

  She should have gone for Wyatt. She should have exploited the fact that he hadn’t stopped.

  Wyatt powered across the finishing-line in first place, and there was a roar of applause. The crowd cheered as he took the stand and showered them with champagne, the second- and third-placed drivers at his side.

  Then he stepped down, victory ringing hollow in his ears.

  In the main
operating theatre of the Monaco hospital, Dr Ian Tremaine looked up at the clock and saw that it was seven in the evening. He did not want to remember the Monaco Grand Prix; all he could think about was the operating-table, and the racing-driver, Yves Courtauld, who lay on it.

  This had been the most difficult operation of his career. For over four hours he and his team had laboured over the patient attempting the impossible. Now Yves Courtauld hovered between life and death, his spine broken between the seventh and eighth vertebrae.

  With Tremaine were two other doctors, an American anaesthetist, and one young, but extremely talented Scottish surgeon.

  Tremaine leaned over Courtauld’s body once more. Before he began again, he muttered a silent prayer.

  In Vanessa Tyson’s hotel room the phone started ringing, and reluctantly she picked it up. It was Jay Levy, the owner of WWTN.

  ‘Vanessa baby, it’s three hours after the accident, what are you doing?’

  ‘I’m lying down.’

  ‘But you said you were going to get hold of Chase.’

  ‘Don’t tell me what to do!’

  ‘Hey, cool it, babe. Remember you’re the one who’s usually pushing me. I’ve taken huge risks on this one - Phelps could sue me and try to close us down. You’ve got a great story, everything you wanted’s been handed to you on a plate. Now what’s the problem?’

  ‘All right, Jay. Relax. It just wasn’t very pleasant watching it all happen.’

  ‘So? You’re going to stop it from happening again. That’s a very laudable thing you’re doing.’

  ‘Oh Jesus, Jay, it’s not that simple.’

  ‘It’s Chase. Is that true, that rumour you were seen leaving his hotel room late one night in Rio? Are you lovers?’

  ‘No, damn it!’

  ‘Then get off your butt and get me some footage.’

  Vanessa slammed down the phone, then got up off the bed and made for the door.

 

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